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There’s a Roman temple here on the palace grounds, one that is as opulent as it is desolate.

I imagine the royal family used to come here—there are certainly enough offering stains on its altars to suggest this.

But the temple lies vacant now that Cotys and his ilk are gone, and the temple priests along with them.

Deep within its inner sanctum, there is a section of space that shimmers unnaturally, a tear within the fabric of the world.

It’s here, tucked into a shadowy alcove, that I wait for Memnon, Ferox at my side.

I do not wait long.

The familiar thuds of Memnon’s footfalls echo in the outer chamber as he strides through the marble temple.

As soon as I hear those footfalls, my heart lurches.

I had hoped the thoughts and battle strategy I’d overheard across our bond were wrong.

As soon as he enters the inner sanctum, I step out from the alcove, the dangling bits of my diadem shivering with the movement.

Memnon’s eyes land on me, and he physically starts at the sight.

Imagine being known as the king who united the steppe lands , Eislyn’s voice seems to whisper.

“Little witch,” he finally says, raising his eyebrows. “What are you doing here?”

The king who conquered Rome itself.

“Intercepting you,” I say.

Imagine Queen Roxilana ruling the people who once ruled her.

The fairy’s words linger in the space between us.

“Which tribe do you plan on visiting first?” I ask.

Memnon hesitates, and something like shame—maybe guilt—crosses his face.

I give him a look. “I can hear your thoughts,” I tell him, “even when you don’t mean for me to. I knew you were going to attempt this plan the moment we woke.”

He tenses. “Are you going to attempt to convince me otherwise?”

I’m sure he can feel my sadness as I step forward, Ferox moving forward with me.

I shake my head. “I can tell when your mind is made up,” I say. There’s no bitterness in my voice, though my heart is weary already. This will be a long and treacherous road, but I suppose we were doomed from the moment we deposed Cotys.

“I intend to give you the world,” he says, perhaps a touch pleadingly. I can feel his bloodlust and his ambition, his grief and his need to appease it in some way.

“All I’ve ever wanted was you.” I touch the diadem nestled in my loose hair. “Not this crown. Not this palace. Certainly not the world.”

Memnon’s jaw hardens. “But you’ll get it all the same,” he says resolutely.

I stare at him for a long time. “I’m sure I will,” I say. “You have accomplished everything you’ve put your mind to thus far.”

I again sense Memnon’s urge to plead with me.

I can practically feel the ache in his knees to bend them, to press my hands to his forehead and beg for more than just my forgiveness: for me to concede to this plan.

Deep in his heart, I know he wants me to believe in this vision every bit as much as he does.

“Why do you trust her?” I ask. I don’t need to say who.

Memnon’s gaze flickers. “Beyond her loyalty to my family…I have peered into her mind.”

I widen my eyes; a surge of something ugly and possessive rises in me. He’s touched her? Looked deep into her thoughts? There’s a sort of intimacy that comes with the act, one that cuts like a blade.

“She has shown me only her sincere respect for the both of us,” he says.

I frown, knowing intuitively that cannot be true, but I trust Memnon implicitly, and if he has peered into her mind…it is hard to argue with what he’s seen.

“What if I told you to banish her back to where she came from?”

Memnon’s brows rise. “I would banish her.”

He must know the words are on my lips because he looks at me beseechingly.

“She’s the only connection I now have to him,” Memnon admits hoarsely.

Ilyapa , Memnon’s powerful, deceased father. The man who loved Memnon as much as he could, despite the toll his power took on his conscience. And now he’s forever out of Memnon’s reach.

What I would give for even an object that my father once touched—or my mother or my siblings.

What logic I would evade, so long as it meant holding on to that item.

And if that item were instead a person, a flesh-and-blood being who could share memories of my family with me?

Who could influence me and coax out my highest ambitions, just as they had my relatives’?

There is little I wouldn’t overlook, just to keep them near.

I breathe in deeply. If Memnon wants to have Eislyn around in order to be closer to his father, I can be accommodating.

“Fine,” I say softly. “I will not ask you to banish her—for now.”

He gives me a small smile before it falls away. Memnon searches my gaze. “If you are not here to banish Eislyn or to talk me out of my plan, then why, sweet mate, are you here?”

I step up to him, laying my hand on his heart. Beneath my palm, it beats swiftly. He’s nervous, even if he won’t say so.

“Foolish man,” I whisper, “I’d walk through the Underworld for you. So if we’re to do this, really do it, then we do it together.”

Memnon’s eyes smolder, a bit of his magic shining through them. His hands grip my upper arms, and he drags me in for a kiss.

His lips are rough, the sweep of them frantic and greedy. I meet each stroke with my own, my hands sliding up his back and tangling in his long hair.

“Too good,” he whispers, “you’re too good for me.”

Even as he says it, he reaches for my breeches, loosening them.

And now he does fall to his knees, taking my pants down along with him.

I suck in a sharp breath at the feel of the winter air against my bare skin. Memnon uses his magic to do away with my boots and the trousers tangled at my ankles.

“What if someone sees?” I ask, as Memnon nudges my legs apart. Ferox swiftly flees the room, his tail twitching in annoyance as he gives us our privacy.

Okay, what if someone human sees?

Memnon wraps his arms around my backside, dragging my pussy closer to him.

Then I will wipe their minds of the memory.

Memnon , I chide, my fingers brushing against the panther tattoo that crawls up his neck.

He grins against my skin. I’m kidding. Mostly.

With that, he presses a kiss to my pussy.

Such a good wife , he praises. So good. So obedient ? —

“You’re about to get a foot in your face.”

He laughs against me. Fine , he concedes, rarely obedient. Highly vicious.

My magic slips out of me then, dragging Memnon’s body up and his pants down.

I lean into him, his hard cock trapped between us. “I want more than your mouth,” I whisper against his lips.

His eyes burn as he lifts my leg. In one quick thrust, he spears himself inside me.

I cry out at the sudden intrusion, not expecting my demands to be met so quickly. I breathe through the intense stretching of my core, the fullness edging on pain before tipping into pleasure.

Memnon gathers me to him and leans his forehead against mine, rolling his hips. “ Fuck , little witch,” he groans, “you feel like sin.”

Memnon stays there, locked inside me while he wraps one of my legs, then the other, around his waist.

Even once he begins to move, his strokes are short and teasing as he lifts and carries me. It’s only as I catch sight of the stained altar that I understand what he intends.

“ Memnon ,” I say, alarmed as he lays me out against the cold marble. My diadem tumbles from my head, hitting the marble altar before clattering to the ground.

Memnon pulls out of me entirely so he can, using his hands and magic, flip me onto my stomach, leaving my upper body draped across the cold altar while the bottom of my torso hangs off it.

He leans over me. “Yes?” he whispers against my ear, nipping at it.

I breathe in sharply. “We cannot do this—not on the altar.”

“Why not?” he asks, grabbing my hips and lifting them.

Even if these Roman gods are not our own… “This is a holy place.”

“Yes,” Memnon agrees. “And this is a holy act too.” He punctuates the thought by thrusting back into me from behind. I moan, scrambling to grip the sides of the altar.

Relentlessly he drives himself into me, his thrusts now hard and deep, his cock hitting that elusive spot within me again and again and again. His magic comes out to play, teasing the sensitive flesh between my folds, and it’s too much, far, far too much?—

Memnon pauses, then wraps a hand around my neck. Leaning forward, he says softly, “You’re not going to come—not yet.” He begins moving his hips again, slowly at first, just enough to tease.

“Memnon,” I plead around his hand on my throat.

“If you can’t be obedient, then I will give this neck a squeeze.”

He wants me to be obedient ? I would laugh if I could.

Instead, I release a little of my own magic, letting it stroke Memnon from the underside of his cock to his heavy balls and beyond.

He groans against me, his grip on my hip and my neck tightening. “Roxi…”

“ Roxilana ,” I correct with a gasp. I intensify my power’s ministrations on his sensitive skin.

Memnon’s thrusts become erratic, and I moan as he hits that spot inside me again.

“Yes, Memnon…” I praise him. Gods, he feels unreal.

“Damn you,” he says fondly, even as he gives me all the sensation I want. The stroke of his cock inside me and his magic between my legs builds and builds until?—

Memnon buries himself inside me, and across our bond I feel the first spike of his orgasm. It’s enough to tip me over the edge too.

“Memnon!” I cry out as my climax lashes through me.

At my back, Memnon groans, his hand reflexively tightening around my neck. The punishing grip heightens the next wave of my release, and I gasp, gripping the altar harder. Our combined orgasms stretch on and on, each one lengthened by the pleasure we share across our bond.

Eventually, Memnon’s thrusts slow, and he withdraws himself. Before I can straighten and begin to clean myself up, he lifts the back of my tunic and kurta and presses a kiss to my bare spine, his nose and forehead dragging against my flesh.

“Promise me you will always be this disobedient,” he breathes against my skin.

“No,” I say tartly.